


In Places Deep

by Hircyon, MoonLeNoirCrow



Series: Break From Austere (ACT 1) [8]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Arguing, Trans Male Character, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 04:27:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9219053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hircyon/pseuds/Hircyon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonLeNoirCrow/pseuds/MoonLeNoirCrow
Summary: There is absolutely nothing wrong with Moralo Eval.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _In places deep, with roots entwined_  
>  I live the life I left behind. __  
> Leonard Cohen - Nevermind

Moralo gripped the doorframe and retched into the tall grass for the third time that day. Not that he was keeping track. He swiped his mouth with his knuckles.

The air didn’t agree with him here. He reminded himself bitterly why he’d sworn he would never return for any reason. Phindar had never agreed with him. Slowly, he eased back into the dim shed where he kept himself occupied with projects and inventions. His mind had turned lately to chemical engineering—of the explosive kind. Moralo considered the powdered accelerants and various quasi-legal ingredients in the cramped workspace. Perhaps he should craft himself a fume hood.

Or just blow the whole fucking thing up.

* * *

The landscape could almost redeem the humid summers, lashing rains, and dry winters. Especially the mountains, the only truly beautiful place on the planet. They didn’t live in the mountains, of course. You couldn’t grow bitter greens and roughage in the mountains. Moralo scoffed. The jungle was beautiful from very far away, like most things on Phindar. He pulled his ankles free of the twining undergrowth. Even in winter, the jungle tried to eat you. 

He let the back door slam behind him, waiting for the booming reprimand from his mate, and found the house empty. It was almost enough to make him happy. They were at each other’s throats more often since their first explosive fit of passion. This was how most relationships went, in Moralo’s experience. Fighting and fucking, it was all the same bloodlust.

The quiet had just soothed his ragged nerves when the front door unlatched and Osi returned, arms laden with packages from the market. Moralo made a guttural noise of irritation and cast a long-suffering look to the ceiling.

“I would help, but then I’m afraid you’d mistake my pity for care,” he called out.

“You? Help?” Osi questioned back. “Even a droid isn’t stupid enough to make that mistake.”

Moralo felt a smile edging through the irritation. “And that’s the way I like it.”

He sauntered into the small kitchen to pick through the supplies for anything valuable or edible, but found only seedlings and basic provisions. He scoffed and swung the fridge open.

“Nothing for me? You know, I could leave at any time,” he growled. “You’re not exactly making this worth my while.”

Osi sat heavily at the table, tension clear in the lines of his face. “Nobody’s stopping you.” Moralo grit his teeth. When he got his hands on that manipulative bastard Jedi again, he wouldn’t be as lenient as last time. “I did get you something,” Osi rumbled.

He turned and a small box bounced off his waiting hands and clattered to the floor. Stooping to retrieve it, he paused in shock, bent awkwardly at the waist. Blood pounded behind his ear scales. He could just make out Osi’s voice.

“Ever think you might be pregnant?”

Moralo choked as he came back up, holding the pregnancy test like a dead womp rat.

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Why would I?” Osi looked up from where he hunched at the table.

“You think you’re some kind of virile demigod,” he mocked. Osi actually laughed. No comeback could have made Moralo more angry. He almost staggered under the intensity of the feeling. “You—you _would_ humiliate me like that. Well, joke’s on you, you backwoods imbecile. I’m not pregnant.”

“And how would you know that?”

“How do I—I would know,” he snapped. “It’s my body, you think I wouldn’t know? I would know. 

“Just take the test.”

“You don’t understand anything, do you? I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“Prove it to yourself,” Osi said, with threatening softness.

Moralo ground his teeth, infuriated by Osi’s relative calm. How could he throw that word out there so simply, like it was nothing? Not one to balk from a challenge, Moralo squared his shoulders and hissed.

“Fine.” He turned to leave, but swung around so hard he had to grip the edge of the counter to stay upright. “And when you find out you’re wrong, you’ll owe me for this insult.” He huffed, satisfied, and stomped to the bathroom. Nobody made a fool of Moralo Eval.

* * *

 Crouching awkwardly, he managed to pee on his hand and the stick. He slapped the device on the counter as he stumbled over to wash his hands, feeling queasy to the very pit of his being. His body buzzed, anxiety-fueled arousal telling him he would feel better if he got off. The temptation was so strong, he almost went to find Osi. Moralo pushed through the front door and leaned on the railing of the porch, contemplating a fourth gastric evacuation. Arousal had gotten him into this mess. He swallowed the bitter saliva in his mouth and looked up to the bare, inescapable sky. What mess? There was no mess to speak of. He would make sure of that.

It took nearly fifteen minutes to work his confidence up enough to go back. He considered throwing the damn thing away without looking, knowing in his heart he was right, as he had always been right. But Moralo was a man of science, and empirical evidence couldn’t be denied. He looked at the little indicator. A slow coldness spread into his stomach.

Moralo pitched the test triumphantly across the table to Osi, who recoiled. The larger Phindian looked at it, glanced at Moralo, looked back to the test, and finally folded his hands. Moralo crossed his arms over his chest.

“See?”

“Moralo.”

“Your stupid shit’s broken. I told you this was pointless."

“It’s positive.”

“It’s _faulty,_ ” he hissed, leaning in.

“Then do another one.”

“How many of these things did you buy?”

“Enough,” Osi roared, open palm hitting the table hard enough to make Moralo flinch. He wasn’t sure if that was an answer or a statement. Osi bore down on him, teeth bared. “Your ego won’t save you,” he said, slowly circling Moralo around the table. “You aren’t always right, Moralo. Time will tell the truth. Not you. Not me.”

The smaller Phindian balked and hissed soflty, edging toward the back door in case he needed a quick escape. “Keep your kriffing platitudes. You wouldn’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.”

Osi snarled and charged. Moralo fumbled for the door latch and frantically backed out until he tripped, rolling to his feet in the dust. Osi blocked the doorway with his head low and his arms spread to grip the frame.

“Go back to your toys,” he warned. “You’ll be happier.”

The door slammed. Moralo shook, feverish with rage. That cold sliver still speared his guts. He wanted to fight, but what could he do to someone so much larger and heavier? Or rather, what could he do that wasn’t permanent? He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

“I’m never happy.” He spat reddish saliva onto the dirt, but there was no one left to care.

* * *

 

For weeks, they passed silently like rocks in space. Moralo skipped meals and slept irregularly, beset by nightmares and physical aches. Osi tended the back fields as long as there was sunlight, and tended the home until he slept. They practiced a well-timed cycle of avoidance, each living in a quiet house haunted by the presence of an unseen other.

Moralo’s body was also haunted. The waves of nausea were passing, but in their place came irritability and inexplicable aches, which came over him as unpredictably as summer rains. His body felt used. He was anxious all the time and his nervous tics had doubled in frequency. It was a pathetic way to live.

Moralo crouched at the foot of a wide tree and watched clouds pile over the newly planted field. Winter storms were few and far between, but they meant cold rain and winds as hard as fists. He wouldn’t be able to hold out in the shed. The Phindian brushed his knuckles unconsciously over his stomach. He could bear a lot. Life demanded that kind of resiliency. He’d never been much for apologizing, though. Not the way Osi would want. That kind of sincerity churned his stomach the way few other things could.

The Phindian pressed his teeth to his lower lip. He spent his entire life looking for exits, escape routes, contingencies. Alone was the only safe way to be. How could you ever really know someone well enough to predict their thoughts? How could you trust you would always be one step ahead? That, when they struck, you would be ready?

He cast one last look over the fields as the sky darkened, and pushed himself up with a grunt. He was getting heavier. Stress weight. His joints cried out in anticipation of the rain as he hobbled to the house.

* * *

The storm howled like a predator. Moralo slipped from room to room for several hours, avoiding his mate’s attention and picking at leftovers whenever the coast was clear. The strange stabbing cravings had dulled lately, and his appetite as a whole had gone with them. Illuminated only by the fridge’s white light, Moralo leaned into the stale, cold air and surveyed his late night snack options.

“Look what the anooba dragged in,” Osi purred next to his shoulder. Moralo gasped and slammed the door as he backed away, automatically bristling for a fight. Osi held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“What are you doing?” Moralo asked breathily.

“Playing nice. You haven’t been around lately. I almost thought you’d run off.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“No. Not really.”

Moralo blinked, momentarily thrown off. “Look, I just want to get this over with. Can we just sit, quietly? Preferably on opposite ends of the house?”

“No." 

Moralo sighed. He didn’t feel up to an argument. The fatigue bit too deeply.

“Come with me,” Osi said gently. “We can sit quietly, together.”

Moralo raised an eye ridge. He debated his escape options and found them lacking. He scoffed and followed the larger Phindian across the house to the bedroom. It was large, dimly lit, sparsely furnished but somehow still homely.

“How apropos of my life—trapped again and again in prisons of different sizes. At least this holding cell has a warm bed and a willing body,” he muttered. “Though the food isn’t much better than prison fare,” he added pointedly.

“Do you have a problem?” Osi’s voice was hard, but level.

“No.”

“Then—“

“What do you get out of all this?”

Osi blinked in annoyance. “What do you mean?”

“This…this conformity.”

“It helps me,” he rasped, lower than usual. “It feels like I’m actually doing something here.”

“You _were_ something before this. And so was I. No,” he shook his head sharply. “Maybe you’re content to be a farmboy, but Moralo Eval has dreams. Aspirations.”

Osi grunted. The usual non-response for something outside his emotional depth, Moralo thought bitterly. They stood in silence for several seconds, breathing slowly, waiting for something decisive. Rain crashed against the windows, the noise stifling. Moralo’s hand brushed his swollen belly. He didn’t know if this nervous tic was supposed to be soothing.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “What are _we_ doing? A criminal mastermind and a Separatist commandant, wrest from the jaws of the Republic by a Jedi, of all people, and dumped in this backwater, nowhere farmstead. This is the life you want? Is this what you always wanted?”

“No. But it’s the life I have.”

“And you’re just going to take that?” he demanded, stepping closer. “You think you’re safe? We can never be normal. We are what we are, and we became this way for a reason. There’s no going back for people like us. All I ever wanted is to be alone. Do you understand?” Moralo pleaded, voice rising beyond his control. “When I left this gods-forsaken planet, I swore I would never get close to another being again. That there was no feeling in me to get in the way. All I want is a way out.”

“Go,” Osi said, barely more than a cough. He didn’t look up. “Nobody will stop you.”

“Do you really think it’s that easy? I’m not even alone in my own body anymore. I can’t escape.” Moralo took two steps forward and grabbed Osi’s shoulder. Hard muscles twitched beneath his fingers. He almost wanted to push his mate over the edge. Then he wouldn’t have to say any more. It would finally be out of his hands. “I can’t make myself do it. What do you think that means?”

The larger Phindian’s arm rose in the corner of Moralo’s vision, and he closed his eyes. He would let it happen. Everything else could be taken from him, but as long as he was alive, he would find a way to hurt. It didn’t matter who. It was all the same bloodlust.

Osi’s hand met the back of his neck and pulled him in until their foreheads bumped. Moralo squinted his eyes open but couldn’t focus. Osi held him still for a few seconds in this bubble of intimacy—the low rumble of breath, humid warmth between their faces, faint sour tinge of old sweat. Then he let go.

“That’s it?” Moralo reeled away, waiting for the backstab. “This is a mistake gone completely unchecked, and that’s all you can do?”

Osi shrugged. “Most things are mistakes. You deal with it. You move forward.”

“I should have ended this a long time ago.”

“But you didn’t,” Osi retorted with that cold, cutting simplicity Moralo hated. “You can go, but you’re only reliving your past, whatever it was. You’re a coward. You think that makes you smart.”

“And what makes you so highly qualified?” Moralo snarled.

“You forget, I’m a strategist. You think nobody can outthink you, Moralo, but you don’t know what real strategy is. It’s looking forward. Making choices. You let things happen and run when you feel yourself losing control.” He folded his arms behind his head and stretched out. “True, nobody can outrun you. So like I said, you’re free to go. But I promise you, your enemies will surround you if you do.”

“You’re projecting,” Moralo muttered. He didn’t exactly follow Osi’s implications, and that made him nervous.

“Is that so?”

“Because you failed, you can’t acknowledge the possibility of escape. You damned yourself to this empty, banal life—as what? Penance for your failures?”

Osi heaved a gusty sigh. “This is not a failure. To die as a pawn in Dooku’s plan, that would have been a failure.” He opened his eyes just enough to give Moralo a knowing glance. They both knew about the failed kidnapping, how Dooku had shifted strategy long before the plan came to fruition. How disposable Moralo had always been. He shifted uncomfortably and moved to leave without comment.

“Come,” Osi said, patting the bed. “There’s room for two.”

Again, he thought of escape and again, he couldn’t find the will. Moralo laid down just close enough to feel warmth but not touch, bunching the sheets around himself. If this was a prison, maybe he could be the warden for a little while. His unfortunate malady would solve itself in about four months, and then he would be free again.

Moralo wished he could just drift into a calm and reassured sleep. That was the intended outcome, the correct ending. But he shifted, uncomfortable in his skin. This thing was changing him, pushing him into a new shape. It was almost grotesque. Moralo smiled a little at the corners of his lips. Grotesquery he could deal with.

He touched his skin lightly, but he could feel its fluttering from inside. Eating his blood, pumping it back through tiny valves. Moralo pressed his palm over his uterus. This half-formed thing could be crushed so quickly. It would be the easiest killing he’d ever committed. It was almost unfair. He choked on a traitorous feeling. Everything was unfair. He had never asked for this. He’d never asked for his own birth, and then he’d learned asking was pointless. You took or you lost—there were no half-measures in life. Everyone was alone in the end, but for the moment, he could close his eyes and feel, under the liquid rush of his heartbeat, the slow rolling of something new.

Life and death; it was all the same bloodlust.


End file.
